


what happy feels like

by Ryah_Ignis



Series: Season 14 Codas [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 14x08 coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: "Instead, Cas takes a breath.  Prays that this isn’t what happy feels like.Just to reassure himself, he walks quietly into Jack’s room.  He’s sleeping on his side, curled around a pillow.  It’s muscle memory—maybe Jimmy’s, even though this has long since been Cas’s body—to brush the hair from his forehead."14x08 Coda





	what happy feels like

Once they’re done with dinner, Cas helps Dean clear the plates into the kitchen.  He’s been unusually quiet this evening, but Dean chalks it up to the stressful day they’ve had.  And maybe the whiskey from last night. God knows that Dean’s head rings every time he speaks above a whisper.  He’s just been too relieved to bother toning it down.

“That the rest of it?” he asks, gesturing at the two cups Cas is holding.

He dunks one of the plates into the warm, soapy water in the sink as he speaks.  Sam’s, he thinks, judging by the half burger that had been left on it. Kid has never been all that good at eating the day after he gets drunk.

Cas nods. “I told Jack to get some rest.  Sam’s helping him get his room back to normal.”

Dean can’t help but smile at that.  Goodbye, oxygen tank. Hopefully, they’ll never have to see that again.

He takes his time rinsing the plate.  He’d extend this moment forever, if he could.  Well, minus the headache from his hangover. 

“You know, the older I get, the less I understand him.”

It pops out without his permission.  He almost hopes that Cas won’t ask, but he knows better than that.  Instead, he turns his attention to drying, moving the towel in slow, careful circles.

“Sam?”

Dean holds back a laugh at that.  Sam has been inscrutable since he mastered his poker face at age eight, but Dean can read even that.  Making sure he didn’t tick Dad off too bad had required it.

“Dad.”

Cas moves to the sink, grabs a plate.  They work in tandem for a few minutes. The repetition of tasks like this—jobs you do in a house, calming in their simplicity—has always been soothing.  Working side by side with Cas more so.

“The year Sam and I were looking for him, I had an accident on a hunt.” He sets the clean plate down on the counter and takes to drying the one Cas hands him next. “Stupid, really.  I got electrocuted. Sammy took me to a doctor, and he told me I had a month, max.”

Like most of Dean’s pre-Hell memories, it feels like something that happened to someone else.  Or something he watched in a movie once. The pain, though, that he remembers like it was yesterday.

“We called Dad.  He didn’t come.”

Another plate done.  Dean mechanically takes the next one, scrubs at some imaginary dried food Cas left on the corner.  

“I wasn’t angry.” He lets out a little laugh at that. “I wasn’t.  And, God, I should have been, because if I got that call from Jack—”

Of course, he wasn’t in the room when Jack died.  And he’s not sure he’ll ever forgive himself for that.

“You’re a much better father than yours was,” Cas says slowly, never once taking his eyes off his plate.

Something in Dean’s chest seizes, and not in a bad, electrocuted kind of way.

“Yeah, well.  Doesn’t take much.”

It feels good to say it.  Better than Dean expected.  To his credit, Cas doesn’t comment.  He just keeps cleaning the last plate, traveling in methodical circles around and around.  Dean feels his throat close over and he can’t say why.

“Never thought I’d be—”

He cuts himself off, but Cas can tell what he means.

“This is your white picket fence,” he says thoughtfully. “This bunker, this life.”

Before Dean’s brain can get around to telling his tongue to shut the hell up, he speaks.

“You.”

Cas stops cleaning.  He doesn’t move to put the dish down.  Just stands there, comically frozen, a look on his face that Dean can’t quite read.

Damnit.

Now that he’s opened the floodgates, he can’t stop.

“I think—I think you’re my white picket fence.  My end game.”

He’s not sure who moves first.  Cas tosses the plate aside—it’s a miracle it doesn’t break—and practically lunges toward him.  Dean drops his towel and he doesn’t even mind that Cas’s hand is still soapy when it wraps around his waist.

* * *

Sam walks into the kitchen approximately forty-five seconds later to the sight of a pile of half-washed dishes and Cas crowding his brother against the counter.

He decides that it’s bedtime.

* * *

An hour after Dean drifts off to sleep, Cas is still tracing the curves of his face with his eyes.  There are lines there that hadn’t yet been etched into his face when they met. Each one tells the story of a life Dean never thought the would have—growing old with someone he loves.

A life he never  _ will  _ have, now.

Selfishly, Cas thinks that this is it for Dean.  That even once his deal comes due, he won’t be able to have this with someone else.

Maybe he’s wrong.  Maybe Dean doesn’t need him to be happy, not like Cas needs Dean.

There’s a part of him that wants to shake Dean awake and tell him the truth, but Cas can tell it’s not going to settle the horrible ache in his chest.  It’ll only make it worse.

Instead, he shrugs his way out from underneath Dean’s arm and the tangle of sheets.  Dean shifts in his sleep but doesn’t wake.

Cas slips out the door and down the hall.  He finds Sam sitting on the floor outside of Jack’s door.  If Sam realizes that he’s just exited Dean’s room in the middle of the night, he doesn’t show it.  Instead, he nods at the door.

“He’s asleep.  No more of that wheezing breath, either.”

The last few days, Jack has sounded like he’s gasping his last all the time.

“Can I—?”

Sam nods again.  Cas eases the door open and pokes his head inside.  Jack doesn’t even stir in his sleep—dying and reviving in less than twenty-four hours tends to do that to you, Cas supposes.  

He wants more  _ time. _

Instead, Cas takes a breath.  Prays that this isn’t what happy feels like.

Just to reassure himself, he walks quietly into Jack’s room.  He’s sleeping on his side, curled around a pillow. It’s muscle memory—maybe Jimmy’s, even though this has long since been Cas’s body—to brush the hair from his forehead.

There’s none of the cold sweat from his illness.  When Cas kisses his forehead, he half expects to drop dead on the spot.  

He backs out of the room.  Sam offers him a tired smile.

For a wild moment, he wants to tell him.  But Sam doesn’t deserve that burden. Not when he’s lighter than he’s been since the moment he realized that Cas was possessed by Lucifer three years ago.

“Good night, Sam.”

Sam raises his eyebrows, looking knowingly at Dean’s door, but he doesn’t say a word as Cas turns his back.

He should go.  Beg the Empty to take him  _ now _ , screw the happiness it thinks he’ll ever earn.  Spare them—spare  _ Dean _ —the pain of trying to stop the inevitable.  He knows better than to hope that his deal will remain secret for long.

He’s too much a coward.  Instead, Cas walks back to Dean’s room, opens the door.  Dean’s eyes blink open in the sudden light. He grumbles something incomprehensible under his breath as he pulls the covers back.  Cas crawls back into bed. The memory foam still has an imprint from his body.

“Night,” Dean murmurs, tucking his face into the crook of Cas’s neck.

How could he ever be happy knowing what he’s leaving behind?

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, thank you for all of the lovely support this coda series has gotten.


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